Straight Priorities Monday

I'm at work, so I don't have time to blog this morning. I have airline tickets to book, dinner reservations to make so that we can go check out Aspen's culinary Arts meal next week, people to hire, people to train; I want to be out of here to make my Dr.s apt by 3:00 and I need to check and see if Nicholas wrote me back yet- but my sister sent me what I copy/pasted below this morning. A speech someone gave at a graduation.

Someone else is likely spamming the whole world with it and my inbox was like the 34986732468 today that got it.... but I really appreciate what it has to say anyway.

Reading it made me feel relaxed- uncoiled and so I just wanted to post it for the random soul passing by my blog that also needed to read it. So your welcome, and thanks Jen! (And also thank you random speaker with excellent life skills to teach... :)

Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work.

There will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk or your life on a bus or in a car or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts but also your soul.

I no longer consider myself the centre of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my friends and them to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cut out. But I call them on the phone and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, at best me diocre , at my job if those other things were not true.You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are.

So here's what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger pay cheque, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon or found a lump in your breast? Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an email. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are generous. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted.

Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around.It is so easy to exist instead of to live. I learned to live many years ago. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today i s the only guarantee you get. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived.

Working weekends is unhealthy....

Back to work tomorrow...

I LOVE my work, my company is awesome, thoughtful even, the people I work with are great the work I do is meaningful, fun, challenging.
Can't ask for too much more than that out of a job.
It isn't really like work actually with the exception of when I have to go in and work because someone else isn't going to show, or almost worse, when I THINK I'm going to have to go in- like last weekend -

I was just getting ready to go into the last round when work called so I bailed out of the last round of our flight at the pre-release. (that I was actually doing really good in for once..)
There I was, alllll psyched out that I'm going to have to go in, I'm letting my family down and I have to ditch my plans; I'm bummed and teary eyed and then all of a sudden it turns out I didn't really have to go..

I enjoy this kind of 'lifercoaster' less and less as I grow in years and wisdom.

Every weekend I work all day on one of the two days my lover and (sometimes) my children, are home and I'm, well.... I'm working and their home.

I'm not bitching really- I want my job and I am sooo thankful for my employer - our family has what we need and personally, I do too.

I just miss spending the weekends with my family. With Nicholas.
That was one of my favorite things!
Nicholas and I made 2 new toons on the Horde server in World of Warcraft tonight. I don't remember the name of the server right this second, but it starts with a "K."
My new toon is named Aloestain. Which I thought sounded a little romantic for my evil doer, but Nicholas thought I was referring to a dirty joke by the name I picked... LOL!

I totally wasn't, but after the fact wished I had done it on purpose and it had been intentionally humorous.

Intentional humor is so much more intelligent!

Before we got started I ran to Starbucks and got us some coffee because I was in the mood for a steamy cup of Joe. Which even though it has now cooled to tepid is still mighty tasty. Only trouble is I need to stop sipping on it, because for one I need to be at work in the morning and if I toss and turn all night because I was still drinking coffee at 11:00 thats gonna suck, and possibly worse is the way my coffee is making me thirsty - so I keep chugging water, I feel similar to how a fish bowl must feel, all sloshy inside yet surprisingly unquenched...

My total was $3.33
The cashier commented that 3 must be my lucky number.
I responded by saying that I guessed it all depended on how you chose to look at it.

Much like Aspen's eye brows. ((LOL!))

Poor poor Aspen.


I took her yesterday to the WalMArt beauty shop right by our house to get her eye brows waxed. I did too, mine aren't great but I turned out decidedly better than she did.

It was actually amazing really. I called Nicholas to tell him I did that $21. Blockbuster rent one movie at a time thing... my son and I rented Cloverfield.. anyway I gabbed with him for like 2, perhaps three minutes, tops and then we got off the phone.

While we talked I wasn't watching Aspen, which makes it a little bit my fault.

The fact that I went on to pay the "lady" (another story) ((hormones are interesting btw)) that butchered my lovely daughters eyebrows was the second.
I'm such a wuss about refusing to pay people.
I am getting off the subject.

Thing is- I was only looking down for a short time like I said, and when I closed the phone and turned to look at Aspen, I gasped out loud... kind-of a screech/gasp.

Wide eyed Aspen gasped too and said Whaaa? Sitting up.

I caught myself and said - "I just didn't expect them to be soooo skinny!" (gulp)
I was referring of course to the place on her face where her eye brows were supposed to be.

The "lady" said hmmm? As if she hadn't noticed or I was crazy or something to that effect.

My kids are half Italian and to look at them, I think the only non-Italian features they truly have are my big stick out ears and hammer toes and needless to say the girls are unflatteringly hairy.
You know, to be female and hairy isn't really good.
How come some guys get away with being almost hairless and we poor women even tend to get hairier as we age?
At my age poor Aspen is probably going to look like a wookie if she hasn't had laser therapy or some invasive hair removing therapy before then.
I know for me at the ripe old age of 37, I have to shave on a daily basis now to stay smooth and lovely.
I DON'T... but if it was important to stay smooth and lovely I sure would have to!

Anyway, Aspen's eye brows had to have been nearly an inch thick to begin with... we just wanted them shaped.. we were really clear. I had even outlined the shape we were looking for with my finger before she started.

I don't have a picture of the way poor Aspen ended up and frankly, if I did, she would kill me for putting it up.
Though she would also have to know I am blogging about it .. hmmm...
but anyway, her eye brows ended up as skinny as this equal sign --> = top to bottom...
no kidding.. to which I boldly stated just goes to prove that not every man can be woman!

Everyone in the family room heard me.


My son flew back to Colorado today.
He called to say he landed ok- a baby cried but the flight wasn't bump until landing.
Phew- he's afraid of flying.

I was so very happy to have him come out and visit me this week!
It was everything I wanted.
I did the things that were important to me to do with him, no guilt and I got to see himand enjoyed his presence, his company, his views...

What a relief!

It is hard to get used to being strong enough to have your child living far away from you.

Almost as hard as it is to steer them in the right direction.

I feel like I really got a lot done today.
I finally reserved our spot at the Pergula Arbor in the Arboretum and Botanical Gardens.... (giggle)
It is now officially ours!
OURS.
OURS! (hehe!)
It is amazing how much more real and exciting it all feels now that we have the park reserved for US!
I also bought a wedding gown today. (Yippey!)

It is lovely and it is hanging in my closet. I keep going in there (my closet) struggling to get above the shoes I have flopped on the floor just inside the door and then over the clothes I have piled here and there on top of the crunch machine and my hope chest-

If I can get my left foot firmly planted just beyond the spot where the closet door can't swing any further open I can then lean in around the door with the rest of my body... lean... lean... waaaaay to the left and while leaning push the door shut behind me while simultaneously pivoting to make it all work, to look at my dress - turn my dress around to look at the train and giggle to myself and then turn around and giggle at Nicholas.

I definitely need to clean out my closet.

Southwest Flight #1576

My son gets in tonight at 11:40 pm.
Yes, thats kind-of late.
I know.
Yesterday afternoon on the phone I said something to him like.. "I'm so excited that I'm going to see you tomorrow..." to which he said "Yea for like twenty minutes of tomorrow."

Well ok, but I had a plan this time.
I'm calling it The Guilt Free plan.

One of my co-managers told me it doesn't make sense to her that I'm not Catholic.

I don't know about all of that, but I do know that every time he comes to visit- for the past few years that we have lived far apart anyway, it seems he spends most of the time he is here just hanging by himself because I'm always working.

Even if I just went through a long spell of having a lot of free time if he comes to visit it will cinch it that I will go into a serious busy streak. The last couple of times he has come we have had state inspections at work or corporate interventions and I have not only been working but working seriously long hours and when that has happened I have felt desperately guilty and like the worlds shittiest mom.

So this time I decided to try the guilt free plan. The plan that says why have him stay a week when I don't have a week to hang? Why not have him come for the days that I'm going to be off and I'll pay attention to him and let him practice driving my car, and check out apartments and schools and talk about stuff that interests him and test new video games and fix the brakes on my daughters car together and stuff like that... and when it's over, when it's time for me to work again send him packing. Send him home feeling loved and attended to instead of as an after thought- which he never ever is but this time I'll show it and I'll feel good about that.